Machinga East Parliamentarian Esther Jolobala says Malawi will have a tailor-made guideline for how to handle natural disasters such as cyclones once the Disaster Risk Management Bill is amended and assented to by the president.

Jolobala, member of the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources and Climate Change, made the remarks at a press briefing in Lilongwe following 61 amendments raised by the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).

She has said that the Committee will go through the amendments in collaboration with the CSOs in order to bring forth the desired results if the bill is to be passed into law.

“We are trying to engage them [government] before tabling the bill so that we should be able to understand each other and agree on some of the issues,” said Jolobala.

Speaking on the importance of the bill, Jolobala said that it will guide how the country responds to disasters thus aligning disaster response to the law unlike the current situation which is time consuming and uncoordinated.

She added: “the bill is very important because it will guide on how we are going to do our things when disaster happens, we will be following what our laws are saying.”

On behalf of the CSOs, Civil Society Organisation Network on Climate Change-CSONEC National Coordinator, Julias Ngo’ma said they want to see a bill that is empowering the local Malawian as well as the ministry that is doing disaster risk management.